Loss
by klefarolinebabies
Summary: Loss can cripple you. When the veil was dropped and Silas was let free, Caroline lost everything. She lost everyone she loved. She had no one left, or so she thought. She was never ready for Klaus, but is she now? Semi AU.


**My first story, woo! **

**Sorry for any typos.**

**Hope you enjoy! ;)**

Life isn't easy. There's struggles that come with it, that's a given.

But there's always that one desire to make someone proud. Whether it may be a parent, a friend, a guardian, even a soul mate. The deep-rooted desire to make someone proud is just part of being human. It can't be stopped. And when you fail to meet that desire, you feel like a failure; empty.

Caroline was not human, but she was the closest thing to it. Her humanity had never escaped her, and despite everything she was put through, she refused to turn it off. Even being an abomination of nature, she still kept the light that surrounded her even in the darkest of times. She had always tried to make something of herself. She wanted to be known, and she wanted everyone she loved to be proud of her. She couldn't help it, it was her humanity peeking through the façade of the monster on the surface.

It had been 40 years. 40 years since the veil had been dropped. 40 years since everything went to hell. 40 years since everyone she loved had died.

Her mother, being only human, couldn't do much. Caroline had tried to protect her, she had tried everything, but in her time of trying to shield her mother from Silas and all the resurrected creatures and spirits, she failed to see that everything else around her was falling apart. Her friend's efforts to stop Silas were only futile, getting themselves killed while trying.

Jeremy and Elena were faced with the gripping death of Alaric, which caused them to shut down; give up completely. He was the last parent they had. They had lost so many people in their lives to the point of where it was just not enough to have each other. So they gave up. On hope, faith, and everything in between. The end result was them getting slaughtered by Silas. They died on the same bridge where their parents died. Silas had told them it was poetic, that they should have thanked him for ending their lives in such a special place.

Damon was killed immediately after the veil was dropped. He made a mistake. _"Never have your back turned on the enemy,"_ he would say. It was ironic that he had died not following his own rules. After Damon's passing, Stefan wasn't the same. He just didn't care anymore. Regardless of the hardships they had throughout their relationship, all Stefan ever wanted to do was make Damon proud of him and he felt like he failed. Without his brother, he was nothing. The week after the incident, Caroline found him in his bedroom with a stake in his chest, self-inflicted, with a note beside him addressed to her saying, _"I'm sorry."_

Bonnie had tried to fight the darkness inside her, she really did. But it was just too strong. It overpowered her, replacing all of her being with something evil. The Bonnie that Caroline knew, the Bonnie that her and Elena would have sleepovers and play dress-up with during their childhood years, was gone. No less than a month after she had given into expression and joined Silas, he decided that he had gotten what he needed and carelessly tossed her aside like a piece of garbage.

Tyler had come back to check on her, briefly, if only for a few days. The whole time he had seemed distant and she got the feeling that he didn't want to be there at all. When he had to leave, he sprung the news on her that he was never coming back. Even in the midst of an apocalypse, he still used the excuse of being on the run from a man who wasn't even hunting him.

_"I can't let him find me," he said nonchalantly, as if he wasn't just telling her that they'll never see each other again._

_"For God's sake, Tyler! He's not even looking for you! Haven't you noticed that yet?" She was done. Deep down she already knew what she was going to do. It was inevitable. It was either be in a relationship over the phone with a guy she wasn't even really sure if she still loved, or be alone. She chose the latter._

_As he opened his mouth to speak, she cut him off._

_"You know what? Save it. I'm so done with this, Tyler. Can't you see what's happening? All of our friends are dead. All of your family is dead." He winced at that. "I'm trying to keep my only family alive including myself and you still only care about protecting yourself. It's always been you over me." He wouldn't even look her in the eye now. Coward, she thought. "I'm just done, Tyler. I can't be in a relationship with you when you don't care enough to stay. I truly hope that one day you will find someone who you care about enough that you would do anything for them. I just wasn't the right one for you." _

_With that, she walked away from Tyler and never looked back._

_A few months later, she heard whispers of the death of a hybrid. The first hybrid made from the original hybrid. Tyler._

Liz was the only person left in Caroline's life. There was the exception of _him_, but with her whole life dedicated to guarding her mother, she didn't even have time to think about him, nor did she want to. She had to protect her mother from everything and everyone. No one was to be trusted. So imagine her surprise when Tyler, thought to be dead, shows up at her front door. Too shocked to think otherwise, she let him in. One minute away from her mother, in the kitchen making tea, was all he needed. Her first step into the living room was accompanied by Tyler, or rather Silas, snapping Liz's neck. He had smirked maliciously towards her and then bolted for the door. The next few days were spent cradling her mother's corpse as she rocked back and forth repeating her mantra of, _"You can't be dead. I need you. You can't be dead."_

After she had found the strength to get up, she had buried her mother in their family's crypt, beside her father. With no one to say goodbye to, she packed up what little possessions she had left and traveled the world with a morose disposition for the next 35 years.

For 35 years, there was always this nagging voice in the back of her head, telling her to go to _him._ She didn't want to listen; she thought she was hopeless. That surely, without a doubt, the man that once loved her and made her a promise to be her last love, had moved on. Until one day, she thought of everything that had happened to her up until that moment and asked herself, _what more do I have to lose? _

She finally started listening to what that voice was telling her. _Go to him._ For the first time in a long time, she was smiling. She felt like she was finally doing the right thing. Caroline was going to him.

It's not an easy thing to find an all-powerful original hybrid. If he didn't want to be found, he wasn't going to be found. She searched all over for five whole years. Keeping in mind that she was a vampire, five years actually wasn't a very long time. She never gave up. But after those five years, she finally found him. He was right under her nose the whole time, in the one place that she thought to be way too obvious for him to hide in. _New Orleans._

After parading through the festive and alive streets of New Orleans, she made it to his house. It was huge to say the least. It looked as if it was an old 1800s Victorian style mansion. She took the cobblestone path all the way up to the iron clad doors. She had butterflies in her stomach. What if he moved on? What if he was with someone else? After all that she'd been through, she would not be able to handle that. _Stop being overdramatic, she thought to herself. _She rang the doorbell of the mansion.

There were footsteps sounding from inside the house, coming closer.

The door opened and she was met with the surprised expression of a gorgeous man.

_"Carol-" She cut him off with her lips, practically throwing herself at him. She couldn't believe that after all this time, she was finally kissing him. Their lips melted together, like this was what they were meant to be doing. _

_She gently pulled back. _

_"Klaus," his name rolling off her lips like a sweet melody. _

_"Do you know how long I've been waiting for you, Sweetheart?" Just hearing him use her old nickname in that captivating British accent sent her heart reeling. She hadn't known just how much she missed him until now. She missed everything about him. His nicknames, his witty banter, his blue eyes that seemed to never end, his dimples, oh, definitely his dimples. She missed how big his heart was, even when it looked as black as night to everyone else, she knew the truth. She knew that even though it was rare, when he loved, he loved with his whole heart, with every fiber of his being. And she was ready. She was ready for that kind of love. The old Caroline may have been insecure and neurotic and immature, but it's those things that had helped her grow into who she was now._

_"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have waited so long, but I'm ready now," she said whole-heartedly. _

_"Ready for what, love?"_

_"For you."_

_He just smirked and took hold of her waist, dipping down to capture her lips with his, conveying all the emotions he felt at that moment: joy, passion, pride, but most of all, love. _


End file.
